Around the time of the recent climate summit at Copenhagen, a new word began to drift around: hopenhagen. It just showed what the summit was all about: hope – for the Earth and for us.

Now, that our political leaders couldn’t see eye-to-eye on how to make the Earth cleaner and greener makes for excellent analysis and political commentary. But for folks like you and me, it’s just a lot of mumbo-jumbo about strategies and negotiations.

Here are a few things we can do, courtesy the Internet, to be more sensitive members of planet Earth.

Track your food. Learn how many miles your favourite frozen dessert has traveled before eating it. www.organiclinker.com/food-miles.cfm has a calculator that helps you find out more about food miles. Use it to see whether it makes more sense to buy brand X from continent A or brand Y from another country.

Share your car. Want to carpool, but don’t know people who travel on the same route? Log on and hit the search button. www.carpooling.in showcases car pooling programmes in different cities in India. With a bit of initiative, you should be able to find one that works for your part of the globe.

Let the trees live. Ever wished the tree existed, but not at that exact spot? Tree transplanting can make it come true. Locate the experts who can move these leafy wonders to a different place and revive them. The Internet guides you to many of them across the world.

Chill out, eco-style. Find online a great place to visit these holidays, and a green one too at that. There are several sites that list green destinations, plan trips and offer packages. Check out www.ecotourdirectory.com to for starters, and create your own travel trail.

Gift eco-consciousness. A toy for your nephew? Cosmetics for your sister? A little something to pamper yourself? Find green answers for all of them. No, we are not providing a link for this. We got zapped by the hundreds of options online. And we’d rather let you enjoy the act of finding a green gift and feeling good about it!